• Second Barcelona Test, Day Three

Raikkonen keen to return but waiting on doctors' orders

Kimi Raikkonen wants to return to the cockpit on Sunday © Getty Images

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• Drivers:
• Eric Boullier
• |
• Romain Grosjean
• |
• Kimi Räikkönen
• |
• Davide Valsecchi

• Teams:
• Lotus F1

Kimi Raikkonen wants to return to the cockpit of the Lotus for the final day of testing, but the team is waiting on final confirmation from its doctors that he will be well enough.

Suspected food poisoning sidelined Raikkonen on Saturday, meaning Lotus had to call upon reserve driver Davide Valsecchi while Romain Grosjean flew back from his day off in Paris to drive in the afternoon. However, Raikkonen has been in touch with team principal Eric Boullier and is keen to get back in the car on Sunday.

"He's feeling better," Boullier said. "I think he's missing driving, obviously. He confirmed to me that he wants to drive tomorrow and he feels ready to drive tomorrow so I'm going to wait for the final assessment of our doctors, but I think he's going to be okay."

The team completed just 61 laps between its two drivers on Saturday, but Boullier said Lotus did its best to run as much as possible despite the changes that had to be made to the cockpit to accommodate the changes in drivers.

"Changing drivers at such late notice is complicated when you have to re-do the seat position," he explained. "Obviously a lot of time was lost today, but at the end we did a decent mileage - 61 laps is not great but it's better than nothing - and at least we could do some long runs on high fuel. We keep working on making the car reliable and to keep some understanding of the tyres."

He said Valsecchi, who completed 16 laps in the morning, had done well given the circumstances.

"I feel sorry for him because this morning was a bit of a shock for him, but it was good news obviously," Boullier added. "I think he did a very good job at being as ready as he could be, but he was still lacking some experience in Formula One."

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